It is current practice to strip carpet glued to a concrete surface or other supporting surface manually or automatically. The manual method requires workmen physically separating small sections of carpet using various hand tools, is time consuming and therefore expensive.
Automatic methods utilize carpet stripping machines in which a section of carpet is fed between a plurality of rollers mounted on the machines. As one or more of the rollers are driven, the carpet is drawn between the rollers propelling the machine forward. The forward motion of these machines may be used to cut the carpet into an elongated strip as knives mounted on the front of the machine are slid through the carpet. These automatic carpet stripping machines are also designed to lift the carpet off the supporting surface as the carpet is passed over one of the rollers.
These automatic machines require a substantial amount of horsepower to perform the operations of cutting and stripping in this fashion. Occasionally the motor used to supply the driving force for the rollers is stalled due to the power required to cut and lift the carpet in a cutting and stripping operation. Therefore, large motors are used in these machines making them expensive and also heavy for an operator or workman to handle during movement of a machine from job to job.
In addition, these machines have also had their forward motion stalled by the slipping of the carpet between the rollers.